seventeen years??????

My dad's funeral was 17 years ago today. It's amazing to think so much time has passed, when I thought I could never live without him. But I discovered that I can, because he is now a part of me and I am never alone, never without him, and I know that he will never be truly lost to me. St. Leonard, a member of the communion of saints. It's not that I don't still grieve, and sometimes I miss him so much my heart, literally, aches, but the grief has changed; gradually, the comfort of my memories and my sense of his presence has finally outweighed the pain. Most of the time...

Certain smells, certain moments when I feel unloved, certain aspects of the Christmas rituals, and hundreds of other ordinary details of life, will reopen the wound. But at least now I can let it bleed for a while and go on. At least now I can be open, not only to those painful moments, but also to the many joys of my life.
--Joyce Barrington

on second chances

I found out last week that I have been accepted into the Master's of Theology Program at St. Kate's! Talk about a boost! I was so terrified--convinced, actually--that I'd be rejected that getting that phone call (the director of the program notified me by phone) felt like I'd suddenly come out into light after walking in darkness for eons. For so many years it's seemed as though I've been dealing with nothing but fibromyalgia, migraines, depression, PTSD, losing my mom...it feels as though this is my reward. My second chance at life. Hopefully, the beginning of a lifetime of using what I've learned from my own personal tragedies, as it were, to help people who are hurting and in need of someone to be a loving, listening presence.

N.B. This is partially lifted from my application essay:

People often look at me strangely when I tell them I hope to work as a chaplain. They ask if it isn't depressing, if I couldn't make more money in another business [author's reply: YES I COULD MAKE TONS MORE MONEY ELSEWHERE], why I don't just volunteer at a hospital once a week, if what I want to do is work with sick people. But for me, it feels like a call, as though it's exactly the place God wants me to be, the thing that is most true to who I am as a person. What I remember most about my experiences as a chaplain intern is the sense of total honor,to be allowed to companion people during the most sacred, awe-inspiring moments of their lives--including, yes, the moment of their death.

For years, ever since I was first diagnosed with PTSD, I've longed, desperately, to somehow find meaning in my suffering by someday using my brokenness to help heal the pain of others. And when I began my first C.P.E. (Clinical Pastoral Education, basically a chaplain internship) at St. Joseph's Hospital, working with cancer patients, and the following summer at the VA Medical Center working with WWII combat vets still carrying the emotional ravages of all they had seen decades ago, I discovered that I had a certain authenticity. Because I'd been there, too. Maybe I hadn't had cancer, but I was familiar, through personal experience, with psychic and physical pain, and many of the spiritual questions that inevitably arise from it. I found that mixed in with the sorrow, and my frequent feeling of incompetence and awkwardness, were moments of true connection, of utter holiness. The "thin places," as my Irish ancestors would say: the mystical moments when earth and heaven meet.

Over ten years ago, after my summer at St. Joseph's, I wrote a short piece for The Catholic Spirit in answer to their question "Who is my neighbor?"; more than anything else I've written here I feel this brief narrative explains why I've chosen the ministry I have. And it also shows that in this ministry, so far, I've gained far more than I've given.

Dwarfed by the hospital bed, surrounded by IVs and beeping monitors, she was a tiny, frail elderly woman with enormous haunted dark eyes dominating a white face. A native of Poland, she spoke little English, but was nonetheless able to understand the diagnosis: inoperable stomach cancer. Six months, maybe less, to live.

I was a chaplain intern with a grand total of three weeks experience, observing my first hospice consult. What could I, a 27-year-old graduate student, possibly say to a lonely frightened dying woman who didn't even speak English?

As I stood huddled in a corner of the room and watched, a tear formed in one of those dark eyes and slid slowly down her face. Then another. And another. Her fragile body began to shake; and suddenly I found myself far from the safety of my hidden corner, my inexperience forgotten, my arms around her and my face buried against her shoulder, I dug out my little blue plastic rosary, and as we wept and prayed together, the healing love of Christ transcended the gulf between us, overcoming the barriers of language and age, binding us together as fellow pilgrims walking hand in hand on our journey home.

Note: I should explain here, for those who don't know me well, that I was in the M.Div program at the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity for about three years in my mid-twenties. I dropped out in 1997 when my fibromyalgia, depression, and PTSD made it too difficult to function, much less handle grad school. It's been my dream, ever since, to return to school, get my degree, and become a chaplain (hospital or hospice). Incidentally, none of my classes/credits transfer to St. Kate's, because it's been over ten years since I did my coursework. This is fine with me, actually, since my memory of those days is hazy, to say the least. It feels great to start afresh!

forty for forty

Oops! I made out my resolution list several weeks ago and then completely forgot to post it. I've never made birthday resolutions before, but hitting a milestone birthday has inspired me to take stock of where I am and where I want to go. So here goes!

1. Keep up with gratitude journal somedays
   
2. Complete adoption application, home study, and dossier still trying to come up with application fee
   
3. Yoga occasionally
   
4. Physical therapy exercises at least 5 days per week ummm...
   
5. Volunteer for Barack Obama (GOTV effort) nope--migraines kept me in bed
   
6. Begin spiritual direction done
   
7. Paint living room, hallway next spring
   
8. Send in grad school application for Master's in Theology Program by December 1 make that December 30
   
9. Find financial aid for grad school
10. Celebrate 40th birthday in style done!!!
    
11. Lose Prednisone weight by Christmas almost
    
12. Apply for spiritual direction certificate program changed to pastoral ministry certificate program
    
13. Cardio at least 5 days per week
14. Strength training, 2 days per week
15. Get mammogram done
    
16. Organize photos
17. Organize mom and grandma's letters
18. Obedience lessons for Fiona
19. Eat at least 5 fruits and vegetables daily HA!!
    
20. Check into infertility support group found online adoption support group
    
21. Check into fibromyalgia support group
    
22. Organize study
23. Do The Artist's Way
24. Date night with George once a week
25. Work on improving my Spanish, especially conversational maybe French, instead
    
26. Send birthday cards ON TIME not even close :(
    
27. Update blog more often better
    
28. Journal every day, even if for only a few minutes somdays
    
29. Organize mom's things, finally
30. Explore ways to finance adoption looking at foster-adoption now
    
31. Send five things for publication
32. Read To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, Catcher in the Rye, Anna Karenina, and The House of Spirits
33. Learn to knit
34. Knit prayer shawl
35. Become commissioned Eucharistic Minister
36. Check into Basilica Befriender ministry yes
    
37. Reconnect with college friends doing
    
38. Keep to a regular sleep schedule getting much better
    
39. Organize week using The Life Organizer by Jennifer Louden will probably never do
    
40. Watch more comedies too many Law & Order reruns, still
    

empty arms syndrome

Once again, nature has confirmed that I'm not pregnant. Maybe we should buy stock in Kleenex, as I'm going through a couple of boxes a week these days. I know it's not healthy to focus on the negative things, that I should be grateful for all of the blessings in my life, but I can't stop crying today. Actually, just about every day I wind up in tears; there's always something that reminds me of how empty my arms are.

With my 40th birthday right around the corner, I'm constantly fighting the panic rising in my throat and the voice in my head telling me that it's too late for us. Right now we're debating fertility testing. I'm not sure there's much point, really, because we can't afford any kind of assisted reproduction techniques. Our insurance doesn't cover it and we can barely pay our medical bills as it is. Plus, I'm hesitant to try Clomid (should that be a viable option) because it could make my depression worse. We'd love to adopt, and are looking into it, but I don't know how in hell we would pay for that, either.

I'm just so tired of dealing with infertility. First, after we got married, one of my doctors said I shouldn't get pregnant because my antiseizure medication might be too dangerous for the baby. Then last summer we consulted a perinatologist, who thought that after some medication adjustments we could go ahead and try; I'd be a high-risk pregnancy, but we'd have a good shot at a healthy baby. Now I can't even get pregnant. And one by one, my friends have been getting pregnant and having adorable, lovely babies.

It feels as though motherhood is happening for everyone around me, and I just want to scream "Why not me?!" Am I being punished for something? Am I just totally deficient as a woman? We are so lonely for a child of our own. I'm happy for my friends, I truly am. But why, God, can't I have a baby too?

I apologize for the pity party, but I needed to vent.

i survived boot camp

HOW did it get to be July 23 already? This summer is going by so fast--too fast! I spent the first part of the summer at Chronic Pain Boot Camp. Well, technically, the correct name is The Chronic Pain Program (through the MAPS Pain Clinics), but it certainly felt more like boot camp: four hours a day of intensive physical therapy, support group and education around living with chronic pain, and relaxation therapy. I haven't moved so much in years, and everyday I came home and did nothing but veg out and sleep. Same thing on the weekends. Yet, to my surprise, I not only survived but am feeling and doing better than I have in years--a couple of weeks ago I actually went HIKING up at Gooseberry Falls, much to George's (and my) amazement!

The Pain Program is offered for patients who suffer from chronic pain which can't be cured, and the goal is to help patients learn to cope with their pain and return to living active, productive lives. I finally have tools to help me manage my fibromyalgia, back pain, migraines, etc., and, after so many years of feeling like pain victim, I feel as though I have my life back at long last. My only regret is that I didn't do this sooner--I would have if I'd known about it! Apparently, this type of program is the recommended treatment for fibromyalgia. Grrr. Oh well, I've told all of my doctors to recommend this to their other patients with fibro, so I hope other folks won't wind up going for years without any real help.

My goal now is to keep up with the gains I've made by keeping up with my exercise regimen, eating healthfully, getting enough sleep and practicing relaxation techniques. I'm also planning to do some volunteering at the Basilica and with the Obama campaign; I'm hoping I can parlay the latter into some kind of job doing grassroots organizing. Oh, and I also want to try my hand at doing some freelance writing.

I hope all of you will forgive me for being such a lousy friend over the last year or so. Looking back, I think my mom's death triggered a fibromyalgia relapse, and I've really struggled with both terrible pain and, even more, the frustration, anger, loneliness and grief that accompanied it. Still, that's an explanation, not an excuse. I hope my friends will, please, let me make it up to you in the future. :-)

discernment

So here's my prayer for the day:

Lord, teach me to be generous,
Teach me to serve you as you deserve,
to give and not count the cost,
to fight and not heed the wounds,
to toil and not seek for rest,
to labor and not ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.
--St. Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuit order), The Spiritual Exercises

When someone is given a great deal, a great deal will be demanded of that person;
when someone is entrusted with a great deal, of that person even more will be expected.
(Luke 12:48)

Or to paraphrase, what Fr. Neenan (good Jesuit that he is) said to begin my Boston College orientation: "To whom much has been given, much is expected." (The Jesuit mantra, at least the B.C. Jesuits!)

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I've believed this for years. But belief is one thing, putting that belief into practice is another. Please pray for me as I struggle with the question of how. How do I use my gifts (for I know that I have been very, very blessed) in a responsible way, in spite of my physical, etc. limitations? How do I discern what God's call is for me today?

"The greatest glory of God is the human person fully alive."
--St Ignatius of Lyons (or Antioch? I don't remember!)